School Choice and the Children of Migrants: Unveiling Everyday Migrantophobia in Moscow

Abstract

Research for this article was conducted with funding from the French-Russian Research Center for Social Sciences (Centre d'études franco-russe) in Moscow.While many surveys point to widespread xenophobic, "migrantophobic" attitudes among the Russian population, very few studies have so far investigated the ways these attitudes may inform everyday practices and interactions between immigrants and the majority population. This article explores this topic by studying school choice practices in Moscow in the 2010s. Using qualitative methods (a series of semistructured interviews conducted with 32 Muscovite parents in 2015 and 2018), I show the ways in which ethnic and national characteristics of pupils are mobilized by parents when selecting a school. Moscow's highly stratified educational system led to an unequal distribution of children of migrants from the former Soviet republics of Central Asia and the Caucasus among schools, to the point where some schools came to be known as "migrant schools." In this context, I analyze the strategies used by some parents in order to enroll their child into a school without children of migrants. I then reveal the underlying beliefs and stereotypes commonly associated with children of migrants. Finally, I explain why parents can use the presence of migrants' children as a choice indicator even in the absence of any clearly expressed migrantophobic attitudes. I show how, in a complex and rapidly transforming educational system, the relative presence or absence of non-Russian children came to be interpreted by many Muscovites as a reliable indicator of a given school's quality.

Influence Of Labour Migration In The Labour Market In The Jewish Autonomous Region

“…At this stage, the multinational population of the Jewish Autonomous Region is taking over the most difficult cultural changes, the transformation of the way of living, the period which has to do with the processes of interaction of different social and ethnic groups. Numerous researchers dealing with issues and problems of migration processes in their scientific works argue that ethnicity is a necessary feature of labour migrants (Kempf, 2020;Olimov & Olimova, 2019;Oleinikova, 2020;Orekhovskaya et al, 2020;Prokhoda, 2014;Tashlykova, 2020;Lobanova et al, 2019;Voloshin, 2018). "The ethnic factor is not a myth but the nature of our sociality, spirituality and even nation-building.…”

“…The issues to be addressed for a comprehensive study of the stated problem are in using current notions (Balzer, 2017;Bliakher & Ivanova, 2020;Cieslewska & Biajet, 2020;Grigorichev & Koptseva, 2020;Kempf, 2020;Usloviya i tsena…, 2021), the laws and regulations, the statistics (Immigratsiya..., 2021) on the nature of problems of migration processes, in particular, in the field of labour migration.…”

Intercultural And Inter-Ethnic Communication Problems

“…When analysing the problems of harmonization of interethnic relations, the theoretical developments of national and foreign authors in the field of sociology of consent and harmonization of ethnocultural relations (Bedrina & Lazareva, 2021;Bliakher & Ivanova, 2020;Cieslewska & Biajet, 2020;Grigorichev & Koptseva, 2020;Kempf, 2020;Semenova et al, 2021;Ushnitsky & Alekseeva, 2019) were used as methodological procedures.…”

State Control Mechanism Of Labor Migration Issues In The Jewish Autonomous Region

“…The issues of State regulation and those of improving the regulatory system of labour migration legislation are topical today. So much scientific researches are devoted to them (Balzer, 2017;Bedrina & Lazareva, 2021;Bliakher & Ivanova, 2020;Cieslewska & Biajet, 2020;Grigorichev & Koptseva, 2020;Kempf, 2020;Immigratsiya..., 2021;Usloviya i tsena.., 2021).…”